The ER is already chaos when I push through the doors.
Voices. Phones ringing. Someone is arguing with a receptionist. Someone else coughs like they’re dying. The air smells like antiseptic and scorched coffee.
I stop just inside, chest heaving, and scan the room.
He’s not here.
The waiting area is full of strangers. No familiar broad shoulders. No dark hair. No sign of 6B.
My stomach sinks.
Maybe Chester was wrong. Maybe he already left. Maybe I’m too late.
I turn slowly, already preparing to walk back out?—
And that’s when I see him.
Not where I expected. Not up front.
He’s near the double doors down the hall, half-turned toward a nurse, one hand wrapped in gauze.
Nathan.
For a second, I just stand there, trying to make my lungs work again.
Then he shifts, and the doors swing open behind him, and he disappears inside.
What am I supposed to do? Yell “Nathan!” across the ER like a lunatic?
I raise my hand slightly, awkwardly, like I’m flagging down a server at a diner—right as he looks over his shoulder and locks eyes with someone next to me.
I mouth, “hi.” Just mouth it. I don’t say it. I’m mute, apparently, and my hand is still in the air like an idiot.
Something tugs on my shirt.
“You can go next,” says a tiny voice. Where the hell is that coming from?
I turn and find a little girl, maybe six or seven, with a pink cast and a gap-toothed grin, looking up at me. She offers a sage nod.
“Huh?”
“You’re raising your hand. You can go before me. I hate the doctor anyway.”
“Oh, uh—no, that’s not it. I was just—” Lower your hand, Ella. Lower it!
I quickly hide behind the counter while Nathan walks back out. A pretty, young doctor stands next to him. I mean, I’m assuming she’s a doctor; she’s wearing a white coat. “Seriously, Nathan, still getting into fights?”
I duck my head down and try to listen through the chaos.
“Hey, miss.” The little girl joins me behind the counter. “Why are you hiding?”
Seriously, though, where are her parents?
“I’m…” Wait, where did he go? Slowly, I stand to my full height and look around.
The receptionist slams an iced coffee onto her stand right next to me. Her gaze flicks in my direction. “Hi. What are your symptoms? Birthday? Did you register yet?”
“She was next!” the little girl pipes up again.
